Apps of Play Store – Are they Safe and Useful

Have you ever experienced any kind of malware in your phone? You would not probably notice it until it is rooted or jailbroken. The virus of smartphone is real. But, all thanks to App store as they do a real good job to combat malware.

But, as they say, no process can be full proof and safe. This thing too had its share of stuffs and we will help you get through it. However, if we assume that you will stick to your in-house software store, i.e., the App Store or the Google Play, the chance of the infection lessens down considerably. All thanks to the approval process. Through this discussion, let us talk about the various kinds of malware that could get through your system and how we can protect them.

Filters and their mode of work

It is almost known to all that Google’s Android Market, presently known as Google Play was once open to all. Most of the things were there in the market, kept open and that too without much of oversight. Hence, problems like malware were found by many users. Once reported, Google used to take down those apps from the store. Then, a filter for software malware was introduced that had the potentiality to scan all submission which is known for infections.

Later on, in 2014, Google came up with furthermore personalized process of having someone dedicatedly monitoring each and every app. The reviewers kept monitoring the apps that went to the Google Store. However, Google had a fast approval process of having an app on-boarded to Store with few hours or a day, precisely.

However, Apps which are not so speedy often took or rather still takes almost a week’s time to get approved through approval process. The appointed reviewers take the responsibility to test each and every App and hence, it becomes a long time for the developers to wait post submission of their apps. Software with any kind of malware is rejected then and there.

Many people have said things about apps, their approval process and usage. However, the main thing is that not many Apps have malware in the App Store. One more thing, by both system we mean the software that we install from the official store on the phone are being reviewed, either by the filters for software malware or by the human reviewers appointed for this specific task.

Hence, the chance of something bad passing through such a stringent process is almost negligible. However, human error is inevitable and even systems collapse or technology fails. So, once in a blue moon you might encounter some kind of error.

Some of the examples of Malware those got through

You might not believe but it is true that even iPhone can get malware, and it can happen when they are jailbroken. It has been proven and seen that malware can even pass through toughest and stringent of the test like that of Apple’s strict filtering process. It was a research team from Georgia that could successfully sneak in some malware in the App and Apple was not able to catch it through its testing process. However, as it was a research team, they pulled the malware back.

Also, the actual adware has passed through the Google Play’s strict process. In the beginning of 2016, it was seen that a card game called Durak, which is fairly popular was found to have malware. It was dormant for a while and hence it was not caught initially until it started showing ads for that of the third party stores. Google then chose to remove the App from the Google pay Store. But, there are chances that some of similar kind of Apps are still there. So, if there is any doubt, follow steps to know the App better.

Nonetheless, it is not necessary that malware would come from Apps. Take for example Wire lurker, it affects iOS device via OS X that is through USB. Also, it works even if the device is jailbroken. There is a quote from Palo Alto Networks, a security company, “WireLurker monitors any iOS device connected via USB with an infected OS X computer and installs downloaded third-party applications or automatically generated malicious applications onto the device, regardless of whether it is jailbroken.”

So, it keep your device clean from malware, you also need to keep your desktop or laptop devices clean.

Conclusion

It is true that malware is quite a strong thing to handle and it also a strong argument. But, surely it has a solution and we have our share of arguments ready for it.

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